Last week we were chatting about the style of certain classmates from college, and a friend said, “I bet he wears seersucker suits, doesn’t he?” In fact, he does. 😉 But it made me curious about the word.
We’ve likely all seen that iconic striped fabric…but did you know that the word seersucker actually means “milk and sugar”?
Say what? Yep. Seersucker, a fabric that came to the Western world in 1722, is taken directly from the Hindi sirsakar, which is directly from the Persian words for “milk” (shir) and “sugar” (shakar), referencing the alternately smooth and puckered surface of the striped cloth.
So…do you own any seersucker clothing? I have one pair of pants in the classic white/blue stripe–I like them, but they were actually a freebie from a bundle I purchased on Poshmark, not something I picked out myself, LOL.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
One memory takes me back to a long, tall Texan, great- uncle who wore a seersucker suit with his Stetson. A true tycoon, he also carried a fine walking stick in Corpus Christi, TX back in the 50’s and 60’s. He’d make a great story character for anyone inclined to use that image.
Seersucker was lightweight and surprisingly cool to wear during the days before air conditioning. By the 1970’s, both men and women were wearing it in shorts, slacks and sports jackets. Very much a summer fabric.
I absolutely love seersucker. So it’s funny to read this – who knew!! I guess the ones who know these things!! Like you and I now!!